Showing 1-18 of 18 results
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Australian Institute of Sport
The country's elite and aspiring-elite athletes hone their sporting prowess at the Australian Institute of Sport. The 90-minute tours are led by resident athletes, with information on training routines and diets, displays on Australian champions and the Sydney Olympics, and interactive exhibits where you can publicly humble yourself at basketball, rowing and skiing.
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Australian National Botanic Gardens
Spread over 90 invigorating hectares on Black Mountain's lower slopes are the beautiful Australian National Botanic Gardens. The gardens are devoted to the growth, study and promotion of Australian floral diversity. While enjoying the gardens' tranquillity, take the Aboriginal Plant Use Walk (1km, 45 minutes), which passes through the cool Rainforest Gully.
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Australian National University
The attractive grounds of the Australian National University, founded in 1946, lie between Civic and Black Mountain and make for a pleasant wander. Collect the ANU Sculpture Walk brochure for a fine-arts appreciation of the university grounds.
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Australian War Memorial
In a stately position, overlooking Anzac Pde and Lake Burley Griffin, the magnificent Australian War Memorial is one of the finest museums in the country. It houses an enormous collection of pictures, dioramas, relics and exhibitions detailing the events, weapons and human toll of wartime. Most of the heavy machinery is arrayed in Anzac Hall which features an impressive sound-and-light show.
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Blundells' Cottage
On the edge of Lake Burley Griffin sits the stone-and-slab Blundells' Cottage built in 1860 to house workers on the surrounding estate, and now a reminder of the area's early farming history.
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Canberra Museum and Gallery
The stylish Canberra Museum and Gallery is ostensibly devoted to Canberra's social history and visual arts. The interesting permanent exhibition, Reflecting Canberra , includes a charred dishwasher salvaged from a house destroyed in the 2003 bushfire, while visiting collections have run the aesthetic gamut from traditional Palestinian crafts to Korean sculptors.
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High Court of Australia
The grandiose High Court of Australia was dubbed 'Gar's Mahal' when it opened in 1980, a reference to Sir Garfield Barwick, chief justice during the building's construction.
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Lake Burley Griffin
Named after Canberra's architect, Lake Burley Griffin was filled by damming the Molonglo River in 1963 with the 33m-high Scrivener Dam. On the edge of Lake Burley Griffin sits the stone-and-slab Blundells' Cottage, built in 1860 to house workers on the surrounding estate, and now a reminder of the area's early farming history.
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National Archives of Australia
Canberra's original post office now houses the National Archives of Australia, a repository for Commonwealth government records in the form of personal papers, photographs, films, maps and paintings. Records of military service and emigration can be accessed for those keen on exploring their ancestry.
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National Carillon
Sitting on Aspen Island, on Lake Burley Griffin, is the 50m-high National Carillon, a gift from Britain on Canberra's 50th anniversary in 1963. The tower has 55 bronze bells, weighing from 7kg to 6 tonnes. Bookings are required for tours.
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National Film and Sound Archive
The excellent National Film and Sound Archive preserves Australian moving-picture and sound recordings for posterity. Highlights include the absorbing permanent exhibition Sights + Sounds of a Nation , 100 years of audio and visual recordings from Norman Gunston's idiosyncratic interviews to the 1943 Oscar-awarded propaganda flick Kokoda Front Line . There are also temporary exhibitions, talks and film screenings.
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National Gallery of Australia
The National Gallery of Australia has a stunning collection of over 100,000 works of art representing four major areas: Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander, Australian (from colonial to contemporary), Asian and international. The spectacular Art of the Indian Subcontinent gallery showcases one of the largest Subcontinent collections outside of India.
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National Library of Australia
The National Library of Australia was established in 1901 and has since accumulated over six million items, most of which can be accessed in one of eight reading rooms. Bookings are required for the free, customised guided tours or you can simply join the Behind-the-Scenes Tour, which takes place on Thursdays.
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National Zoo & Aquarium
Nestled behind Scrivener Dam is the wonderful National Zoo and Aquarium, to which you should definitely devote a few hours. It has a roll call of fascinating animals, ranging from capuchins to sharks, and includes Australia's largest collection of big cats, including tigons (the unnatural result of breeding tiger-lion crosses in captivity, a practice thankfully discontinued).
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Old Parliament House
The venerable Old Parliament House was the seat of government from 1927 to 1988 and is a great place to get a whiff of bygone parliamentary activity, be it peering through the spyhole into the prime minister's office, re-acquainting yourself with the 1975 dismissal, silently addressing the House of Representatives, or buying your own Hansard bookend from the gift shop. There are free guided tours, or pick up the Self-Guided Tour brochure.
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Parliament House
Opened in 1988, Parliament House was designed by Romaldo Giurgola of Mitchell, Giurgola & Thorp architects, winners of a design competition that attracted 329 entries from 28 countries. Its splendid interior incorporates different combinations of Australian timbers in each main section and more than 3000 original artworks.
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Royal Australian Mint
The Royal Australian Mint is Australia's biggest money-making operation. It has a gallery showcasing the history of Australian coinage, where you can learn about the 1813 'holey dollar' and its enigmatic offspring, the 'dump'.
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The National Museum of Australia
The National Museum of Australia is one big abstract Australian storybook. Using creativity, controversy, humour and self-contradiction, the National Museum dismantles national identity, and in the process provokes visitors to come up with ideas of their own. There are lots of attendants on hand to help you navigate exhibitions on environmental change, indigenous culture, national icons and more, and you can take one-hour guided tours.
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Showing 1-18 of 18 results
